Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Excellent Jumbles
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Cream together the butter and sugar in a bowl.
Beat the egg and add it to the creamed mixture.
Stir in the nutmeg, cream, and baking soda.
Gradually add flour until the dough is stiff enough to hold its shape.
Bake and cool
Spoon the mixture into buttered ring molds.
Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.
Remove from the molds and let cool on a plate.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,920 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and helps the cookies brown and taste rich.
- Sugar
- Creams with the butter and adds sweetness and browning in the baked cookies.
- Egg
- Binds the dough and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that stiffens the dough so it holds its shape.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the dough to help it rise and brown in the oven.
The step that matters
Gradually add flour until the dough is stiff enough to hold its shape. Flour sets the structure of the cookies. Adding it slowly lets you stop when the dough is firm; too much flour makes the cookies dry and dense, while too little leaves them spreading and fragile.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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